Need help on toeside carves. Ok…11th season and its hard groomer with abit of sugar ala Baker. Practicing carves at 30-50 mph…truly only now do I feel that I’m at a level of being somewhat proficient at a real carving level after 10 seasons of 25-35 day seasons. So today, riding a directional twin cambered stiffy with radius of abt 8, reg, duck at +9 and -6, at 22” trying to get as low/high-edged as possible. Heelside being no problem…rump close to the ground/angulated, aggressively on the nose, feeling stable, stacked and holding. However on toeside, wasn’t able to get quite as aggressively on the nose, wasn’t getting as low/high-edged as on heelside and didn’t feel as stable or confident…and at times washing out. Also did not feel like I could pop as well from toeside to the heeledge. (Cavet, also have a mildly sprained right ankle/rear foot…so don’t quite have the usual power/stability..I think was not able to move fore/aft or get in the backseat at the apex) Thus brahs and sissies…any advice/info besides lessons…much appreciation.

Off the top of my head: heelside is where almost all of major damage occurs on your board, and as you "sit" on your heels, your weight and everything is in a more natural "stacked" position so to speak. I'm also speaking off riding recently, it was a hardpack groomer day....

As you go to toeside, your ass and back are no longer lined up with the edge, so in order to get into a more critical edge angle, you have to do less natural things with your body, focus on ankle/knee and hip flexion like tree riding as you adjust your weight to handle that angle. If you try to do it with your weight that sits on the heelside naturally in your torso, its gonna throw your shit off balance on the toeside.

Finally, adjusting your fore-aft position through a turn including board flexion and feeling this go from a hippy feel on the heelside to a ankle/knee feel on the toe side, helps.

finally part 2: because you are trying to keep your upper body relatively quiet along the fall line, all of this shit is going on below your lower back.

don't look at the only picture I posted this year lol.

Heeledge is simply more natural, hence first statement regarding damage, and why u feel this way.

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For toeside, initiating the edge change with you ankles, then drive the knees into the snow while staying compressed, then finally driving the hips to the inside of the turn. The do the opposite to release the edge. How far you drive your hips and knees will determine your edge angle.
The other thing to try to touch the snow with your front hand. One way to practice this is to go into a very slow heelside sides lip and get compressed and deliberately drop your toeside edge using you ankles and then extend to propel yourself down the hill. You should end up sliding down hill on your stomach.

For toeside, initiating the edge change with you ankles, then drive the knees into the snow while staying compressed, then finally driving the hips to the inside of the turn. The do the opposite to release the edge. How far you drive your hips and knees will determine your edge angle.
The other thing to try to touch the snow with your front hand. One way to practice this is to go into a very slow heelside sides lip and get compressed and deliberately drop your toeside edge using you ankles and then extend to propel yourself down the hill. You should end up sliding down hill on your stomach.

what do you mean "drive the hips to the inside?" when on toeside...twist/turn the leading hip into the turn...while staying compressed?...and swing /draw back toward the tail the leading knee? or is it uncompress abit and hump with the hips?...like in your avatar pic

I mean to move the into the turn like my avatar pic. That is where the power comes from.
Don't worry about rotating the hips into the turn until your toeside carves are pretty solid. I think of that as an "icing on the cake" move

I have the exact opposite problem. I've mostly corrected it through my stance and breaking my posture habits, but still get that mental wall sometimes. In pow the problem seems to disappear, but it did take me a while to feel comfortable squatting deep on the groomers when carving. On straights, not an issue rocking back and forth from toe to heel side.

Drive your back knee into the snow, have your shoulders pointed slightly downhill parallel to terrain, if your doing it right you should feel a pinch on the front of your hip where a fat persons spare tire is!

I mean to move the into the turn like my avatar pic. That is where the power comes from.
Don't worry about rotating the hips into the turn until your toeside carves are pretty solid. I think of that as an "icing on the cake" move

I think my toeside carves are ok...sometimes I don't rotate enough and abit too much open...so I will focus on the over-rotating/closing the hips. Btw, I assume in your avatar pic...that you are holding it and are about to move out of the toeside carve...opening your hips/shoulders and about to pop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tatanka Head

I have the exact opposite problem. I've mostly corrected it through my stance and breaking my posture habits, but still get that mental wall sometimes. In pow the problem seems to disappear, but it did take me a while to feel comfortable squatting deep on the groomers when carving. On straights, not an issue rocking back and forth from toe to heel side.

Squatting deep is no problem...its more of what do I do next to move into the toeside turn and out of it. But I do have a mental wall of laying it in the toeside. So I guess ought to practice sliding out...guess I should maybe get some bibs to slide on the belly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MGD81

Drive your back knee into the snow, have your shoulders pointed slightly downhill parallel to terrain, if your doing it right you should feel a pinch on the front of your hip where a fat persons spare tire is!

I think partly due to sprained back ankle, I don't have quite the full range of motion and the power...kind of just letting the backend float/follow about...thus perhaps not the g-force/power to pop off the back seat...idk if that makes sense. But tell me more about the pinch on the front of you hip...and I do have a deflated spare tire.

Can you drag your back knee on the snow in a toeside carve? It's kind of fun to try, and I think it's a good drill to see how low you can get and find that range of motion you can sink into, like you sink into a squat on the heel side. It might not be a great idea with the injury, though.